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What’s in a name? — Part Two…a name reminds us of who we really are

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By Farayi Mungoshi

LOOKING on as Kunta Kinte was getting whipped while tied up to a pole was one Fiddler.
Fiddler was a senior slave at the farm.
He dressed like a whiteman and was entrusted by the master to groom Kinte into a submissive slave at the farm.
However, instead of influencing Kinte into becoming a submissive and well-behaved slave, it is Kinte’s love for his African ways and past that influences Fiddler into trying to remember his own history.
Unlike Kinte, Fiddler does not recall much of his African past except for a song his grandmother used to sing to him when he was young, before being sold off.
He likens the song to the one Kinte repeatedly sings throughout the first episode of Roots.
It is through this African song that Fiddler tries to connect to his old African self. He tells Kinte that he’d been chasing that tune for a very long time, and now that he’d heard it again, it was making him remember things that were tucked away deep inside him.
With tears running down his cheeks, the ‘highly decorated’ Fiddler significantly reveals to us, in this scene, the emotional pain American slaves have had to endure over the past 400 years.
To not know who you are or where you are coming from is like walking the earth directionless, not knowing where you are headed.
There is no purpose to life except serving another man.
Nothing much has changed today in the US; blacks are still slaves, being hauled into prisons, some for crimes they did not even commit.
In prison they are made to work for the state, thereby making profit for it just like their ancestors did when they worked in the cotton and tobacco fields as slaves.
It is Kinte’s vivid memories of Africa and his Mandinga ways that remind Fiddler he is a blackman and ought to be proud, that there is a land where black people are free, where they don’t have to wear shackles, and life is beautiful.
Finally, Fiddler agrees to assist Kinte escape from the farm, maybe he (Kinte) will find his way back home even though the road back is filled with bodies of dead black men hanging from trees, killed by the whiteman, hanged for all to see, to discourage others from seeking their independence.
It is at this moment when Fiddler agrees to assist him that Kinte asks Fiddler’s real name, “The name from your mother,” he asks and Fiddler replies, “Henry, I believe that’s what she used to call me.”
Even then, Fiddler is no longer sure of his real name.
A sign that he didn’t even know who he was anymore, and that he’d been born a slave unlike proud Kinte.
As a slave, he knew nothing else but to serve the master and tend to his every need; he’d become the best at it too and for that he was loved by his master’s wife.
He was called Fiddler by the whiteman because he could play the fiddle.
And because he could play the fiddle, Fiddler was ranked higher than all the blacks at the farm and did not dress like a slave.
But despite the clothes and the extra care the master’s wife showed him, Fiddler was ready to throw it all away the moment a young boy came to the farm and reminded him of who he truly was.
That is the power in a name.
Your name reminds you of who you are – it brings back lost pride and honour.
In a name one can find strength to fight for what belongs to him or her.
That is the reason I answer if somebody says to me Shava–Manhize.
That is my clan name, the name of my ancestors, my connection by blood back to the Creator Himself.
If Africans today could understand that they are tied to the very soil they are walking on, I don’t think most of us would be so quick to deny Africa for the UK or US.
Instead we would labour to advance Africa, abolish poverty and travel to these other lands across the sea as proud traders and businessmen like our ancestors did before the slave trade.
Africa has so much to offer, if only it was not for the meddling it gets from outsiders who still want to profit from all its wealth then Africa would not be in the position it is today.
Sadly, most of us, like Fiddler, have been blinded because we have forgotten our names.
We have forgotten who we are.
How different are we as ‘free’ Africans from Fiddler/Henry when we prefer to go by names that have no strings attached to who we are?
By this I am talking about the term, ‘Christian name’ whereas Wikipedia describes this term as a name of one’s liking or choosing he/she receives upon baptism/christening. We, as Africans, have a different understanding of this.
We give ourselves biblical names which are not even biblical but English names translated from Hebrew thinking. Let’s bear in mind that there are a lot of things the Church has done in the name of God that do not even have anything to do with God.
It is very important that we study, learn and understand that there is a big difference between serving God and serving the Church.
The reason this is so is simple — greed. Most of the churches today have been turned into profit-making businesses that have forgotten the spirituality of mankind.
Was it even God who endorsed this act of giving such names, or the Church?
I do not recall anywhere in the Bible where Yeshuwa instructed his disciples to give people English names upon being baptised yet here we are!
When such names were given, was it for the benefit of the one being baptised or the white teacher at school who found it hard to pronounce African names, or the white boss at work who found it annoying to call his workers by their true African names?
I’m sure most of us remember the question: “What is your Christian name?” and how that always came up after having given your African name to your white schoolteacher, but because it is difficult to pronounce, they preferred to call you by an English name.
It is time the people of Africa awaken to the truth that there are people who will use religion to pollute our minds and drive us from who we truly are. We have always known God, even the Bible itself can testify to that – our ways are really not different from the ways and culture God expects us to live by that is described in the Bible.
Like Fiddler tried to remember an Africa he never set foot in, we, as Africans, should remember our names, pride and honour if we are at all going to succeed in raising Africa again.

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